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Anyone who follows this blog — it is frequently linked to from this place — would be able to understand the code words and time frame to figure out which compan

Anyone who follows this blog — it is frequently linked to from this place — would be able to understand the code words and time frame to figure out which company this refers to. It’s a small world and it’s not difficult to guess which piece of tech, which team, and which engineers and managers were involved as well. The story is a good one but, like all gossip, it’s a guilty pleasure. When someone spreads gossip about a third party then you can assume they do it about you as well. It is toxic and the opposite of building trust. If the engineers referred to in the story were asked for comment or OK’d the post (not that they have to) then I’m completely off base with everything I just said.

ornornor 4y ago
I for one have no clue whatsoever about which company this might be, and even less who the individual people (other than the author) might be. The world is bigger than SV, most of us have never set foot there or know anybody there.
deleted 4y ago
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doitLP 4y ago
Please enlighten us. I figure the company is likely Amazon, and it’s some core service like EC2 given that underpins basically everything and has different agents running on each box that are handled by different teams like CloudWatch?
- philjohn 4y ago
  Not Amazon - the clue is "You know, Cat Pics" - what's a service where you can share photos of things, like your life, your pets etc?
walleeee 4y ago
Is there not an enormous difference between spreading gossip (in my mind, always about someone in particular, which this is absolutely not, or at least not to anyone not neck deep in bay area software circles) and relating instructive, anonymized anecdotes? I'm not sure how you're reading this as gossip.
- gorgoiler 4y ago
  The anecdote would have had as much impact, for me, without the hints as to the which parties were involved. If you are writing an anecdote about someone you know named Sandra Smith who worked on borg at Google then you should call them Charlie and say they worked on infra at a FAANG. Anonymising them by saying they worked on a certain Star Trek themed container tool at a didn’t-be-evil search engine wink wink isn’t meeting the bar for anonymity. Anyone doing that is kind of thumbing their nose at anonymity — I know I’m supposed to make this anonymous but here are some hints so we all know who I’m talking about. The people closest to the subject of the post — the ones where the impact of having their story shared with thousands of others is going to hurt the most — will see straight through it. You might as well call them Xandra Xmith who worked on xorg at Xoogle. Outing people in a way that means their closest associates know who it is, even if strangers don’t, feels tasteless. For me, that’s what makes this blog post feel like gossip. Again, I don’t know the details — everyone involved could be just fine with this story being public. (Thank you so much for asking your question in the spirit of HN. It adds value to something I perhaps should not have said in the first place.)
weeeeelp 4y ago
I've read about a hundred of Rachel's posts and never thought "but who/what company was this actually, specifically, by name", just enjoyed the stories. I mean yeah something something facebook, big places needing big troubleshooting, but in the end I think it's irrelevant to most people, as most people don't work in SV.
draw_down 4y ago
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ornornor 4y ago

I for one have no clue whatsoever about which company this might be, and even less who the individual people (other than the author) might be. The world is bigger than SV, most of us have never set foot there or know anybody there.

deleted 4y ago

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doitLP 4y ago

Please enlighten us. I figure the company is likely Amazon, and it’s some core service like EC2 given that underpins basically everything and has different agents running on each box that are handled by different teams like CloudWatch?

philjohn 4y ago
Not Amazon - the clue is "You know, Cat Pics" - what's a service where you can share photos of things, like your life, your pets etc?

walleeee 4y ago

Is there not an enormous difference between spreading gossip (in my mind, always about someone in particular, which this is absolutely not, or at least not to anyone not neck deep in bay area software circles) and relating instructive, anonymized anecdotes? I'm not sure how you're reading this as gossip.

gorgoiler 4y ago
The anecdote would have had as much impact, for me, without the hints as to the which parties were involved. If you are writing an anecdote about someone you know named Sandra Smith who worked on borg at Google then you should call them Charlie and say they worked on infra at a FAANG. Anonymising them by saying they worked on a certain Star Trek themed container tool at a didn’t-be-evil search engine wink wink isn’t meeting the bar for anonymity. Anyone doing that is kind of thumbing their nose at anonymity — I know I’m supposed to make this anonymous but here are some hints so we all know who I’m talking about. The people closest to the subject of the post — the ones where the impact of having their story shared with thousands of others is going to hurt the most — will see straight through it. You might as well call them Xandra Xmith who worked on xorg at Xoogle. Outing people in a way that means their closest associates know who it is, even if strangers don’t, feels tasteless. For me, that’s what makes this blog post feel like gossip. Again, I don’t know the details — everyone involved could be just fine with this story being public. (Thank you so much for asking your question in the spirit of HN. It adds value to something I perhaps should not have said in the first place.)

weeeeelp 4y ago

I've read about a hundred of Rachel's posts and never thought "but who/what company was this actually, specifically, by name", just enjoyed the stories. I mean yeah something something facebook, big places needing big troubleshooting, but in the end I think it's irrelevant to most people, as most people don't work in SV.

draw_down 4y ago

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